1. Field of Invention
This invention pertains generally to the production of carbon products and nanomaterials and to the sequestration of carbon, more particularly, to a process for producing carbon nanospheres and other carbon products in a manner that also provides carbon sequestration.
2. Related Art
Much recent research and interest has been focused on spherical carbon nanomaterials such as buckyballs and nanospheres. These materials have a number of unique and desirable qualities which can lead to broad, new, high value carbon markets. Carbon nanospheres have, for example, been shown to be highly effective when used as lubricants for machinery, when used as additives to fuel, and when utilized in coatings on pipeline walls for reducing fluid-flow pressure losses in the pipelines. Such materials may also have application in electronics, batteries, medicine, catalysis, structural fabrication, nuclear energy, and other fields as well.
While many potential applications for spherical carbon nanomaterials have been identified, it appears that the development of such applications has been severely hindered by the high cost and limited availability of the materials. With the price of carbon nanomaterials currently on the order of $500 per pound, the specialized market for such materials is small and largely academic, amounting perhaps to a few hundred pounds per year, worldwide.
Heretofore, there have been attempts to produce carbon nanospheres and other carbon products from CO2. However, CO2 is a very stable molecule, and the creation of CO2 is highly exothermic, which means that a considerable amount of energy is required in any process involving the reduction of CO2 to carbon. CO2 can be reduced partially and rendered inert as a constituent in a complex molecule, and it can be reduced completely to carbon by a number of processes. However, the chemical thermodynamics of CO2 reduction generally prohibit economic reduction of CO2 to carbon, and virtually all methods heretofore employed in reducing CO2 to carbon are limited by mass flow requirements, energy requirements, cost of the reactants, and inadequate value of the end products.
When carbon-based fuels such as coal, oil, and gas are combusted to generate heat, sizable amounts of CO2 are produced, and with concerns about increasing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere causing global warming and acidification of the oceans, it would be highly desirable if some of this CO2 could be captured and utilized in the low cost production of useful products such as carbon nanospheres and other carbon products.